“Synchronic”: Another sci-fi mind twister too many people missed out on
It’s a little late for a new review on this film. It came out in 2019 but it didn’t get a lot of attention. Now it’s coming to Netflix, on April 16 Synchronic will be available to stream so I decided it’s the perfect time to get the word out. Starring Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan (who, not gonna lie, in the wake of the “Stackie” friendship, feels like a Walmart stand-in version of Sebastian Stan. It doesn’t help that he has almost nothing to do but act depressingly angsty the whole time), and was directed by the team behind the films The Endless, and Spring, Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson.
It’s got that same dreamlike, what the heck is happening, quality to it, only unlike its predecessor’s, something about Synchronic feels effortless. As if Moorhead and Benson made it quickly from a half-baked idea that was leftover from all their other projects, though it’s hypnotic enough to keep your interest and imprint on your memory.
Synchronic is a mix of big and small. It takes a simple story and then throws it into a mind-twisting concept that focuses primarily on time and how the past, present, and future are simply divided by perception. In a way, it reminds me of Pokemon Go only because, like that annoyingly popular game, Synchronic highlights the things we cannot see. In Pokemon Go, the player needed the use of an app to look for Pokemon and would only be able to see them if they looked through their phone’s screen. During the hype of this game, I often imagined that a Pokemon was standing right beside me but I was unable to see it. I would look behind me and start talking to a Charizard I imagined was standing there.
Although not nearly as silly, Synchronic is oddly similar.
Steve (Mackie) and Dennis (Dornan) are lifelong best friends who work together as late-night paramedics. They each have their own personal troubles which are that they crave the other’s social life. Dennis has a wife, children, and lives in domesticity while Steve is a detached ladies’ man, but both feel hollow inside, and trust me, it shows. But that’s just the boring backdrop used for plot motivation, the real story involves the series of strange deaths they’ve been encountering while on the job. Each death appears to be drug-related but no one has any real explanation for how they happen. Their only clue is a tiny packet labeled Synchronic at each crime scene.
(Spoilers ahead)
As it turns out, Synchronic is a “designer” drug created especially for people to experience time travel. Its purpose is to allow the user to leave their own time for a total of seven minutes. Taking the drug will transport them to a new moment in time, usually the past, and even allow them to interact with whatever is there. However, like everything, there is a catch. For one, the past is rarely kind and there is no way to control where you go when you take the drug. It’s like walking into Jigsaw’s playhouse with a blindfold. You might walk into a pit of chainsaws or you might just walk into a door and live to see another few minutes.
Another catch is the way the drug works. The drug affects the pineal gland but when taken by children, whose pineal glands have yet to fully develop, there is a chance that they might not come back from their trip, which is exactly what happens to Dennis’s daughter Brianna (Ally Ioannides). After realizing he has cancer and has yet to fully live a life worth living for, Steve decides he’ll do whatever it takes to save his best friend’s daughter.
Big and small, some half-baked with a bit of genius, it’s a perfectly congenital film with just enough mystery to keep your eyes on the screen and just enough horror to make you wish Moorhead and Benson would go more Lovecraftian every once and a while. The human relationships and the emotional impact they attempt to make are its weak points only because Mackie and Dornan aren’t very believable as BFFs, but it does its best and is effective to a certain degree. Mackie holds the entire thing on his shoulders, everyone else is just white noise behind him.
The true genius of Synchronic is the drug itself and its take on time travel. Everyone has a vice they use to escape reality and in the case of Synchronic, all the characters want to escape themselves. The drug presents them with this exact option. It’s a representative of all drugs in their rawest, most philosophical form.
Synchronic has one of the best opening scenes of the films released in 2019, a masterpiece of arthouse sci-fi horror. Very ominous and grotesque, beautiful and smartly constructed, like a violin made from human bones playing a tune in a haunted house once owned by a blood-drinking demon cult. If anything elevated my opinion on this film, it was that opening sequence.
(4 / 5)
All photos are property of XYZ Films and Patriot Pictures
Episode two of Amazon Prime’s Fallout was equal parts funny and bloody. This almost always leads to a good time.
The story
We begin this episode with the birth of some puppies that look like they’ve had a rough start to life. Each one is weighed, with the ones who fall short being incinerated.
One pup who is just below the correct weight gets a bit of a thumb on their scale. The scientist weighing them, Wilzig, writes down the proper weight. He later takes the puppy home to raise instead of putting them into what looks like an unforgiving training program.
Eventually, we see Wilzig put some blue glowing thing into his neck. When a soldier comes for him, Dog attacks the soldier, and the two escape.
We go from there to the wilderness, where Lucy is recovering from the last episode and enjoying a campfire at night. Wilzig and Dog come out of the shadows, saving Lucy from a bug monster. Wilzig tells Lucy she should go home. And if she’s not going to go home, she needs to evolve.
The next day Lucy finds her way to a town called Filly. As a Pennsylvanian, it hurts me to spell it that way. Lucy is entranced by this town, though clearly put off by the fact that no one is very nice here.
She eventually finds her way to a shop run by a delightful woman named Ma June. Ma doesn’t seem particularly interested in helping Lucy. Or, frankly, having Lucy in her shop.
Or in her town.
Eventually, Wilzig is tracked to this same shop, being tracked by The Ghoul. This is our final primary character. Lucy defends Wilzig, being aided at the last moment by Maximus.
Maximus, by the way, has been having a terrible time. After finally becoming a squire he’s disappointed to find that his knight, Knight Titus, is a terrible person.
Fortunately, Maximus doesn’t have to put up with Titus for long. After Titus gets the bright idea to go hunting, he’s attacked by a mutated bear. Maximus freezes, unable to save him. Then, well, he decides not to save him.
It was Titus’s idea to go hunt the bear, after all.
What worked
The first thing I want to draw attention to is the shootout scene at Filly. This scene checked every box a fight scene should check. It was fun to watch, with great effects. But it also gave us insight into the characters. Lucy is a decent fighter and has a strong moral compass. The Ghoul is callus and desensitized to death. And Maximus continues to be, well, sort of bad at this whole fighting thing. But with enough moral fortitude that we have a hard time blaming him.
Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the dog. Who’s name, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain, is just Dog. Which is fine. He doesn’t need to have a name to be a very good boy. He’s sweet, loyal, and fearless.
Also, puppies. Puppies are always great.
Finally, I’d like to shine a spotlight on Lucy’s reaction to the world at large. She is both amazed and terrified by everything. And while she certainly doesn’t want to be rude, she also doesn’t want to be taken advantage of. The best example of this is when she stops to ask for directions with a bright smile and a gun.
Once again, I don’t have anything bad to say about this episode. It was funny, dark, and fun to watch. I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the season.
(4 / 5)
Launching with worldwide excitement, Fallout is based on the extremely popular game series of the same name. Fans of the series have waited with anticipation and trepidation to see if the Prime series would live up to the game.
Having now watched the first episode I can say that, so far, it’s successful.
The story
Our story begins with a children’s birthday party. A performer is there with his daughter, giving horse rides and taking pictures with the kids.
As much as the adults try to focus on the party and the kids, it’s impossible to ignore the looming threat of war that’s on everyone’s mind.
Of course, it’s during this party that war comes, and the bombs drop.
We then cut to after the war and into one of the vaults established to protect humankind and the American Way. For future reference, this is Vault 33. We meet Lucy, our first main character, who’s petitioning to be married to a man from Vault 32 to ensure DNA diversity.
On the wedding night, though, Lucy and the rest of Vault 33 are met with a horrible surprise. The group they let in is not in fact from Vault 32, but is instead a team of raiders from the surface. The raiders kill a lot of the vault dwellers and kidnap Lucy’s father.
We are then introduced to our second main character, Maximus. He is in training to become a Knight in the Brotherhood of Steel. And, well, he’s not doing great.
Things get worse when his best friend Dane becomes a squire before him. But when Dane is hurt, Maximus gets their spot.
We then go back to Lucy, who has decided to leave the vault and find her dad. Of course, the council of her vault doesn’t want her to go. So she is aided by her brother Norm and cousin Chet in a wild escape.
What worked
The first thing that deserves attention is the exceptional character work. Our three main characters are fleshed out and relatable right away. We feel sympathetic for The Ghoul before he’s even introduced as such. We love Lucy’s nativity and selflessness. And we love Maximus for his honesty and passion for his cause.
While these characters are their own people, they also exhibit the three responses we might expect to see in a post-apocalyptic world. We have the hopeful optimist who doesn’t understand how bad things are. We have the aspiring hero who wants to make the world better by force. And we have the self-serving individual who’s given up on the rest of humanity and is only focused on surviving.
Another thing I enjoyed about this episode was the balance of humor and gore. Because there was certainly enough blood and guts for even the most hardcore horror lover. We had a violent sabotage, a brawl with raiders, and even several nuclear bombs.
But there were a lot of funny moments as well. Usually from Lucy. Her overall goodwill and fearless gumption are absolutely hilarious, especially given the horrors she’s facing. It never ceases to amuse me.
Both of these aspects are done perfectly. The jokes land and the bloody scenes pull no punches. It was delightful.
All in all, this was an exciting start to a much-anticipated series. Here’s hoping they’re able to stick the landing.
For more tv shows based on video games, check out my review of Witcher.
(4 / 5)
Episode seven of American Horror Story Delicate was a classic AHS flashback episode. If you were excited to see what Preecher had to say to Anna at the end of the last episode, I’m sorry to say that you will not get that satisfaction. However, we did learn all sorts of other fascinating things about the strange coven hunting Anna. And, we learned all sorts of things we didn’t know about Dex’s first wife, Adeline.
The story
We begin our story with a woman giving birth alone in a barn. When it becomes clear that she’s not going to be able to deliver vaginally, she pulls out a knife and cuts her stomach open to pull out her children.
For whatever reason, this is when the coven of witches decides to make themselves known.
We then cut to 2013, when Dex was still married to Adeline. In true Dex fashion, he’s surprised her with a puppy.
While that sounds great in theory, dogs are something a couple should talk about, not gift each other with as a surprise. An adult would know that. A trust fund boy like Dex does not.
Adeline owns a vegan restaurant called Ave Hestia. Love that name. She seems to be living a great life. She has a career she’s passionate about, friends who love her, and a husband she seems kind of fond of.
Maybe that’s why she didn’t want a puppy. She already had one.
Of course, things aren’t as good as they appear. We soon find out that Adeline was one of those babies we saw at the start of the episode. The other baby was Sonia, the painter.
And yes, both of these characters are played by Annabelle Dexter-Jones.
Adeline has stepped away from their family, and whatever dark things they do. But the family isn’t happy with her decision. And if she isn’t going to come back willingly, they’re going to make her.
What worked
To start with, I loved the character, Adeline. She is fierce, she is fearless, and relentless. I feel like this would have been a far different story if Adeline had been our main character. It was astounding to see her interact with the same people Anna has, and get a completely different response. It’s clear now, how much everyone around Anna resents her for simply not being Adeline.
I also appreciated that there was just a shocking amount of blood in this episode. From the start when Adeline and Sonia are born, to the climactic end of Adeline, this episode is just drenched in blood.
Finally, I’m fascinated by the changes in this season from the book it’s based on. Because absolutely none of this was in the book. Compared to this, the book is heartwarming.
The book is kind of heartwarming even without the comparison.
But I love the fact that, even with just two episodes left in the season, I have no idea what’s going to happen. I do not know what Anna is carrying. I do not know if she’s going to survive this. I do not know what these people want with her.
But I can’t wait to find out.
What didn’t work
All that being said, it is a bit frustrating to have no forward momentum in this episode. This was all backstory, and it felt like there wasn’t enough backstory to fill a full forty minutes. Because of that, it dragged. There were a lot of scenes that just didn’t need to be as long as they were. It felt like they could have cut that down considerably, and had some time to check in with our main characters at either the start or the end of the episode.
There are only two episodes left in the season, and I can honestly say I have no idea what’s going to happen. But so far the story has been dark, bloody, and provocative. So I hope they can manage to end it on a high note.
(4 / 5)
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